What's the counterfactual? How many of these people would have died this year anyway?

[Guineapigbridge]

As an economist I am finding the statistics on covid-19 frustrating. 227,300 people have died with Covid-19 as of this morning. According to the statistics from New York that are reported on the Worldometer site, 75 percent of those who died will have had pre-existing conditions including Diabetes, Lung Disease, Cancer, Immunodeficiency, Heart Disease, Hypertension, Asthma, Kidney Disease, and GI/Liver Disease. A further 14 percent of them were over 75 years old when they died, even though they didn't have pre-existing conditions. That makes it 89 percent of people who are at quite high risk of death in a given year anyway, right? So has anyone run the numbers on how many would've died anyway? Without a counterfactual a pure count of deaths is meaningless from a policy perspective.

Depends on the condition. Under control Heart failure / hypertension have neglible impacts to life expectancy nowadays especially for the under 60s.

Things like rhematoid arthritis and colitis are all classed as immune conditions and are treated with immunosuppressants - they shouldn’t have any real impact to life expectancy for a young person.

Similarly people with some terminal cancers often have years left to life; and others can be treated at this stage indefinitetly (melanoma / bowel cancer etc).

You would need to understand risk at an individual disease / age level.

The latest ONS data shows very clearly that there are excess deaths.

You might also be interested in this study suggesting that most elderly would not have died anyway.

news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-warning-as-major-study-finds-most-elderly-victims-would-not-have-died-otherwise-11980675

I'm sure I heard that for every person who died of Covid 19 on average their life had been cut short by 13 years.

Thank you, Legoroses.

Analysis and projections done on the ONS data, allowing for lag in reporting, etc, suggests that the true number of excess UK deaths since first Corona death is now around 46,000. Chilling figures.

@Legoroses - That article has some facts in that don't seem to tie in with other things I've read (can't say which is right or not though)
To suggest old people would not have died anyway seems odd considering there are accepted to be large numbers of care home deaths where life expectancy is generally short

The counterfactual is average deaths - that is a good estimate of how many people would have died anyway. (The article is just for interest.)

My main point is that there are clearly excess deaths.

We are all going to 'die anyway'. That doesn't really work as a counterfactual.

I don't think we'll truly know how many people have died of CV this year till the total death figures are compared with previous years. I read just under 600,000 people die in the UK every year. So that figure will need to be compared with this year. CV might be a contributory factor in many deaths. It's grim.

Sorry to clarify last sentence: to say old people were going to die anyway isn't a good enough counterfactual because we have data on how many people usually die and the corona excess deaths is clearly significantly above usual deaths.

We are all going to die anyway but I'd rather hold it off for a bit longer.

75 percent of those who died will have had pre-existing conditions including Diabetes, Lung Disease, Cancer, Immunodeficiency, Heart Disease, Hypertension, Asthma, Kidney Disease, and GI/Liver Disease. A further 14 percent of them were over 75 years old when they died, even though they didn't have pre-existing conditions. That makes it 89 percent of people who are at quite high risk of death in a given year anyway, right?

I am not so sure you are right. Asthma, diabetes & certain immunodeficiencies, in particular, stand out as conditions many people live with successfully for decades.

So lumping them altogether like that with cancer, heart disease etc, might make sense in terms of increased risk of death from COVID, but it doesn’t make sense in assuming all those conditions mean equally “high risk of death in a given year”.

We already know that week on week thousands more people are dying than we would expect at this point in a year. Those figures are all over the place and easy to find.

That makes it 89 percent of people who are at quite high risk of death in a given year anyway, right?

No, not really. I have to read through students' health forms for school trips, and you'd be surprised how many students have "pre-existing conditions" like asthma or diabetes. I'm certainly not expecting all (or any) of them to die in any given year.

Around 1/3 of adults in the UK have hypertension. We don't expect them to all die in the next year either.

With the excess deaths that are being reported with 2/3 of them but reported as Corona related I'd be very interested in what the cause of death was.

I suspect that info won't be forthcoming.

On the news they were saying earlier that no one could have predicted this causing excess deaths because of other things, that's rubbish though. MN has been taking about that for weeks.

The reporting on the whole thing is v interesting tbh.

Yay, an economist looking for not doom!

I’m guessing you’ve looked at all these

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregistrationsummarytables/2018

And there was the year the flu vaccine failed, 1000s of extra deaths.

Arnold “ I'm sure I heard that for every person who died of Covid 19 on average their life had been cut short by 13 years.”

We record who died WITH Covid, not OF. As Sir Patrick said himself, many deaths recorded with covid would have been people who didn’t have a test.

Hi, no I wasn't aware of the ONS data, thanks for sharing that. I will take a look. Is there anything that shows a global picture?

Beetroot Rocks you have a point there; excess deaths will be being caused by lower access to healthcare, more difficult-to-get drugs, suicide, etc. On the positive side, fewer deaths from road accidents and air pollution.

I get so pissed off with the 'they would have died anyway argument. How do you know? Because they have a common condition that many people live with for many years?! Because they're 73, even though for all you know they could've lived another 20 years. Oh that's ok then then! They wouldv'e died anyway. 89% of people just would've died anyway. Great maths there, congrats.

You don't know who would've died anyway just by deciding yourself that they have an illness or they're old. The excess death figures should tell you what you beed to know without having to make crass calculations based on fuck all.

OP I’m not an academic so only look at general sources

I certainly don’t know how they’d model who would have died anyway so have only looked at the past. (Tbh the most terrifying words in the world right now are “I’m an expert and I’ve built a model”).

Here’s some past figures that might help with your study

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6815659/

www9.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/en/

www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/mortality/WMR2019/WorldMortality2019DataBooklet.pdf

I'm in NZ and very interested in the media handling of this here. Our government started its campaigns (and they were campaigns) stating that 80,000 people could die with Covid19 if we didn't all go into lockdown. What they didn't say was that [say] 40,000 of them would likely die anyway in the next year. The way stats are reported massively changes the public's perception of threat / risk. We are still hearing headline death numbers, thousands dead. Wouldn't it be better to report on the Excess Quality-adjusted Lives or life years (QALYs) that have been lost?

It is grim but it matters to society less if a 95 year old with advanced heart disease dies versus a healthy 21 year old. This is the way health economists value/trade-off investments in health. I don't know why this method doesn't apply to covid, suddenly all life seems to matter equally where it didn't, actually, before.

So has anyone run the numbers on how many would've died anyway?

Yeah, it is called the excess death number. Take a look. Are you REALLY an economist?

Agree with pp that we can’t possibly know who would have died

But Neil Ferguson can’t really know what the worst case was with Covid, and he’s doing a new model I believe?

You don't know who would've died anyway just by deciding yourself that they have an illness or they're old. The excess death figures should tell you what you beed to know without having to make crass calculations based on fuck all
Yeah thanks, I should have stated that the 89 percent of people that I referred to were 'higher risk' rather than 'high'. I don't know how much higher; looking here for insight.
Rationality is what sets us apart from the apes. There's a time and place for compassion but we are allowed to question the statistics and make judgements accordingly.

OP “ This is the way health economists value/trade-off investments in health. I don't know why this method doesn't apply to covid, suddenly all life seems to matter equally where it didn't, actually, before.”

Thank you for being brave enough to say this! My health means it would be cheaper fir the NHS and the country if I died soon, but mysteriously, in this Johnson and Cummings led world, no one is allowed to even think this!

eah, it is called the excess death number. Take a look. Are you REALLY an economist?

Did you mean to be so rude. Yes, I am, and no, I wasn't aware of this number. It's not reported widely (or at all) where I live.

Thanks

If this report is correct, the WHO ate now pleased with Sweden.

nypost.com/2020/04/29/who-lauds-sweden-as-model-for-resisting-coronavirus-lockdown/